Israeli strike kills dozens at Gaza school the military claims was being used by Hamas

An Israeli strike on a school sheltering displaced Palestinians in central Gaza has killed at least 35 people, including women and children, according to local health officials.

The Israeli military said that Hamas militants were operating from within the school.

The pre-dawn attack yesterday morning was the latest instance of mass casualties among Palestinians trying to find refuge as Israel expands its offensive.

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A day earlier, the military announced a new ground and air assault in central Gaza, pursuing Hamas militants it says have regrouped there.

Troops repeatedly have swept back into parts of the Gaza Strip they have previously invaded, underscoring the resilience of the militant group despite Israel's nearly eight-month onslaught.

Witnesses and hospital officials said the predawn strike hit the al-Sardi School, run by the United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees known by the acronym UNRWA.

The school was filled with Palestinians who had fled Israeli operations and bombardment in northern Gaza, they said.

The hospital initially reported that nine women and 14 children were among those killed in the strike on the school.

The hospital morgue later amended those records to show that the dead included three women, nine children and 21 men.

It was not immediately clear what caused the discrepancy.

An Associated Press reporter had counted the bodies but was unable to look beneath the shrouds.

Separate strikes in central Gaza killed another 15 people, nearly all men.

Ayman Rashed, a man displaced from Gaza City who was sheltering at the school, said the missiles hit classrooms on the second and third floor where families were sheltering.

He said he helped carry out five dead, including an old man and two children, one with his head shattered open.

"It was dark, with no electricity, and we struggled to get out the victims," Rashed said.

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Rear-Admiral Daniel Hagari, the spokesman for the Israeli military, said it carried out a "precise strike" based on concrete intelligence that militants were planning and conducting attacks from inside three classrooms.

He said only those rooms were attacked.

"We conducted the strike once our intelligence and surveillance indicated that there were no women or children inside the Hamas compound, inside those classrooms," he said.

Hagari said there were around 30 suspected militants in the three rooms.

He said the military had confirmed killing nine of them, and displayed a slide showing their names and photos.

He provided no other evidence to substantiate the military's claims.

Philippe Lazzarini, the commissioner-general of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), said in a post on the social media channel X that 6000 people were sheltering in the school when it was hit without prior warning.

He said UNRWA was unable to verify claims that armed groups were inside.

UNRWA schools across Gaza have functioned as shelters since the start of the war, which has driven most of the territory's population of 2.3 million Palestinians from their homes.

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